Question

Whenever I have needed to create a class file from an XML XSD schema, I use the .NET xsd.exe tool and prebuild events, in VS, to ensure that my classes and schemas are in sync with each other at build time. This of course works fine, however…

I have noticed that if the XSD and derived class are in the same project VS understands the relationship and visually displays the CS as a child of the XSD file in solution explorer. So I was wondering if there is any functionality in Visual Studio 2010 to perform class creation for me within the IDE rather than relying on the prebuild script?

For example, I would add the XSD to the project set some options somewhere and VS takes over and creates my classes for me.

Does VS 2010 support anything like this? Or should I just stop wondering and continue to use xsd.exe and prebuild.

EDIT
I have also noticed that under the properties of the XSD file I have the option to set a Custom Tool, reading the description this seems close to what I am aiming for but I am unsure of the correct usage for this property.

EDIT
Also, if there is a solution I need this to be based on the features/functions that come as standard with VS2010. I would prefer to not use a 3rd party addon etc

Answer 1

Visual Studio 2010 in itself does not contain any such functionality for general consumption.

Visual Studio has some limited support for this XSD-to-code conversion in the context of typed datasets in ADO.NET – but those are not general-purpose solutions, they are targeted at exactly that one usage scenario.

But do check out the XSD2Code add-in that does exactly that